This is my studio window. But, can I even call this my studio? That sounds a little pretentious. But I don’t like calling it my craft room either, since it’s 80% storage and 10% working space and 10% ribbon wall.

Well, whatever it is, it’s dark in there. I wanted the window to let in as much light as possible,so I just recycled the snowflakes I put up last winter by taping them together. The end result looks a little like Tord Boontje’s Before Dawn curtain –my favorite!

The silhouette of ruffles you see around the window is a garland made from my old Can and Cup Christmas wreath. I was worried it would look too Christmasy up in here, but honestly, it doesn’t. And even if it did look a little jingly, I’m OK with that, because this girl knows how to jangle.

I first moved to Chicago on a crisp and sunny afternoon in late January. The sky was clean, blue and full of potential.

Excited to be living in a big city for the first time, you can imagine my horror as I exited the taxi cab and was forced to haul my suitcases over a stained, discarded mattress.

See, in Chicago, folks like to think they “own” parking spots if they dig their car out of the snow. This “ownership” is communicated by blocking the spot with lawn chairs, old tires, saw horses, broken furniture, etc. They call this ritual “dibs.”

It’s nuts.

I am fortunate enough to not own/need a car, so I can only sit back and chuckle at this seasonal ritual and the, ahem, *neighborly* behavior it brings out of people, including this letter below, posted on a street sign next to someone who decided to claim dibs on the wrong block.

I have no idea who posted it but it made me laugh so much this morning that I was nearly late for work.